


this town (rips the bones from your back)

by throats



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/F, F/M, Homophobia, Not A Happy Ending, Rule 63, always a girl!shane, but the correct ending, shane is a subaru lesbian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:09:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23535829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/throats/pseuds/throats
Summary: On the first day of high school, Shane meets Rick Grimes. He’s a tall, thin weed of a boy, with a mop of chestnut curls that rivals her own riot of dark, tight hair. They’re assigned to sit next to each other in homeroom, their names on the desks before their government-assigned babysitter arrives.-the one where Shane's a lesbian and they're all in high school.
Relationships: Lori Grimes/Rick Grimes, Lori Grimes/Shane Walsh
Kudos: 6





	this town (rips the bones from your back)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [monsterjournalism](https://archiveofourown.org/users/monsterjournalism/gifts).



> me, an idiot: [posts to ao3 in the first time in over a year]  
> people with brains: is this the update to the multichapter fic we've been waiting for?  
> me, an idiot: it's a walking dead au where shane is a high school lesbian
> 
> it's been years since i last watched twd but i was listening to bruce and thought about the 'shane walsh is a lesbian' post and then decided i should not work on my thesis and instead write 6.3k words about shane walsh being a lesbian.
> 
> cw: homophobia, slurs
> 
> please don't @ me. also this is unbeta'd. sorry.

Shannon Walsh knows she’s not like other girls when she turns ten. She’s swinging her legs, looking down at scraped knees while she waits to be called in to the principal’s office when the realization begins to dawn on her.

The idea – that there’s something _different_ about her – hits its zenith as Principal Becker says to her, in his fake-friendly way, “You’re almost in middle school now, Shannon. Big girls don’t start fights on the playground, and they certainly don’t hit boys with rocks.”

“I didn’t start _anything_ ,” she snaps back, crossing her arms. “Nick pulled Lori’s hair and then _kissed her_.”

“That’s what happens when boys like a girl,” Principal Becker continues, “They tease. I’m sure Nick didn’t hurt Lori.”

Her arms tighten around her chest. “She _yelled_.”

“Are you sure?” Principal Becker steeples his hands and looks down his long nose at Shannon. “Nick said she laughed.”

“Nick Verger is a _liar_ ,” she spits. 

Principal Becker wrinkles his nose and scowls. “Shannon, that’s not very ladylike.”

“Well I’m _not a lady_.”

This draws a chuckle out of him, his tweed clad shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter. “I’m going to write a note home to your parents about this and you’ll have to give Nick Verger an apology tomorrow.” He begins scratching a note onto a pink piece of paper, shaking his head while he talks, “You can’t be a tomboy forever, Shannon.”

She decides her name is Shane that afternoon, walking home with the pink slip crumpled in her fist.

* * *

On the first day of high school, Shane meets Rick Grimes. He’s a tall, thin weed of a boy, with a mop of chestnut curls that rivals her own riot of dark, tight hair. They’re assigned to sit next to each other in homeroom, their names on the desks before their government-assigned babysitter arrives. 

“Hi,” he says, throwing her a bright smile and extending a hand. “I’m Rick.” 

Shane stares at his hand. “You new?”

The kid shrinks a little. His smile destabilizes and his shoulders drop just enough to give away his hurt. “Moved to town a month ago.” Then there’s a flash of stubbornness in his pale eyes. “Why?”

Shane glances around them – the classroom is beginning to fill in earnest now, and few people are staring (though if it’s Rick’s sheer newness _or_ his apparent willingness to socialize with her, she can’t entirely tell). “Well if you were from around here, you’d know you’re about to shake hands with the town dyke.” She waits, watches the confusion begin to settle over his features, before she adds, acidic, “Might catch AIDS.”

Rick’s frown deepens. Wrinkles appear in his large forehead. “I… that’s not how AIDS works, right?”

A laugh bursts from Shane’s chest. “Well shit, Grimes, I didn’t realize you’ve got a _brain_ under that ‘fro.”

Rick stares. His hand is still extended. 

She takes it. “I’m Shane.”

* * *

Despite the fact that Rick Grimes seems to lack a single ounce of self-preservation, he’s alright. He doesn’t get in fights on Shane’s behalf, though he does try to talk her out of directly engaging in the school hallways, which makes her parents think he’s a good influence on her. 

They also, less fortunately, think that means since Shane’s finally gotten a male friend, she’s finally going to ‘get over’ this tomboy phase and realize that she’s in love with him.

She tells him this over beers and Airsoft in the old, dried out pasture about a mile into her parents’ property. He nearly chokes on his shitty Natty Light, stolen from her old man’s cooler. “You’re not, right?” he asks. When she stares at him in blank confusion, he adds, “In love with me?”

“No you _jackass_ ,” she laugh-growls, reaching over and pulling him into a headlock, grinding her fist into his curls. 

He squawks, flaps his long arms and shouts, “Alright! Alright!” 

When Shane thinks he’s been properly chastised, she releases him and he stumbles away from her, rubbing the back of his neck. He’s red faced, but grinning. “Just figured it was worth checking.”

She flips him the bird, picks up a rifle, and shoots the empty bottle she’s got set up a few yards off into a hundred tiny glass pieces. 

* * *

The problem, as it always is, is Lori. 

Since the incident with Nick on the playground, their friendship – once built over a shared interest in saving worms when it rained during recess – faltered. Lori’s _friendship_ with Nick Verger blossomed. Shane hated him and told Lori so. 

Lori cried and told Shane that Nick just thought she was jealous.

They didn’t talk much after that.

Lori became a cheerleader in middle school. She got new friends. Shane lost all of hers (not that there were many to begin with). 

Yet. While Lori’s new friends refused to change for gym in the same room as Shane, or called her dyke, faggot, or worse, Lori didn’t. But Lori didn’t do anything else either. She just watched with wide eyes the color of the sea. 

It made Shane hate her. It made Shane wonder if the girl who used to draw their house in chalk in her parents’ driveway, hand Shane a stuffed animal and say, “You’ll be the dad and I’ll be the mom,” was still there.

Lori and Nick lasted until the eighth grade. Lori remained single. Shane did not seek this information out, it was simply impossible to ignore.

Which is why, when three days into April of their junior year, when Rick asks, “Do you know Lori Callies?” she nearly jumps out of her own car.

“What?” she asks, reaching to turn the music down. “Gonna have to speak up, Grimes.” 

(She’d heard him.)

“I _said_ , ‘do you know Lori Callies?’” Rick drawls, slow and purposeful. 

“I ain’t _stupid_ , Rick,” Shane snaps, turning vicious at the sound of his voice. “I just didn’t _hear_ you.” 

“Jee _ee_ sus,” Rick sighs. 

Shane’s mood swings are common enough that she doesn’t worry about him getting suspicious. She shifts into neutral as they roll to a stop at the town’s only red light.

“Could you just answer the question?”

Shane sighs. “What do you want with Lori Callies?”

Rick rolls his eyes. “Well, Shane, I don’t know what _you_ do, but when a boy likes a girl–”

“Go fuck yourself, Grimes.” The light changes. She pushes down on the gas and shifts gears.

“Well I’m _tryin’_ to get Lori Callies to help me out with that, Walsh.”

She stalls the engine. Rick stares at her.

Face hot and red, Shane turns the engine over and tries to speed away from the scene of the crime. “Don’t – don’t look at me like that, you fucking asshole.”

Rick laughs. “I didn’t think you could just forget how to drive.”

“I –” Shane opens and shuts her mouth. Scowls. “You just startled me, s’all. I ain’t ever heard you say some shit like that.”

“What, like a girl? Well excuse me, Shane, if I was tryin’ to protect your precious virtue.”

This time, when they approach the next stop sign, Shane slams on the breaks and Rick jerks forward, the seatbelt catching him in the neck. “ _That_ ’s for being a misogynist jackass. You know I get more tail than you.”

That, at least, is true. Since acquiring her car at the end of last school year, Shane’s taken more trips to Atlanta with her fake ID than she’ll ever tell Rick. In fact, just two days ago, she had a girl with long, dark hair and pale eyes gasping in the seat now occupied by Rick. 

Rick reaches around to scratch the back of his neck, it’s a tell. He’s embarrassed. Guilt crawls up Shane’s throat to war with the insuppressable anger that rages through her spine and down into her hands, into her feet. “Fuck, Shane, I’m just askin’ if you know the girl ‘cause I assume y’all grew up together.”

Shane takes a long moment to breathe. “Yeah,” she finally says, finding her throat dry when she speaks. “We grew up together.”

“Okay,” Rick says slowly. “And?” 

“And,” Shane continues, “in case you hadn’t noticed, I ain’t exactly friendly with the people from around here.”

Rick sighs and crosses his arms. “Fine.” 

Shane pulls into the school parking lot, kills the engine, and exits the hatchback without a word to Rick. _Fucking dick_. 

* * *

Without Shane’s help or approval, Rick and Lori start dating the summer before their senior year. 

Which is. Fine. They don’t talk about her argument with Rick and they don’t talk about Lori’s abandonment of Shane. They talk about the bullshit they have to do for Chem class, Lori bitches about Yearbook, which Shane constantly reminds her is an elective, and they talk about what their plans for the future are.

This topic comes up most often in the pasture behind Shane’s house, where they escape from the ever-watchful eyes of Lori’s parents and the overly-pleasant-and-involved attention of Rick’s. Shane’s folks have pretty much given up; hell, her mom even skipped town two summers ago, she’d given up that much. Shane’s place is safe, unsupervised. 

It comes up when they’re all lying in the tall, yellow grass, forming a triangle with Shane and Rick on either side of Lori, all of them smoking Shane’s weed and drinking her dad’s shitty beer.

It’s the closest Shane has been to Lori in years. She can feel the heat radiating off her skin. Goosebumps prick their way up Shane’s arm. She can hear the sound of her breathing.

Lori, as far as Shane can tell, doesn’t notice. She’s wrapped up in Rick, lacing their fingers together and bringing them to her chest before kissing each knuckle. Shane takes a long drink. 

Rick talks about the Police Academy and Lori hangs on each word, listening with a wide-eyed intent that makes Shane’s chest ache. 

Shane wants to leave this goddamn town. She says as much and in reply, Lori drops Rick’s hand and sits up on her knees, very suddenly. 

Her long, dark hair falls over one pale, bare shoulder, exposed by her halter dress. Her eyes, normally the color of sea glass, are dark. “You can’t _leave_. Why would you want to leave?”

Shane, now long practiced in the art of remaining calm in front of Lori Callies, takes a drag on the joint, nearly finishing it, before slowly sitting up to look Lori in the eyes. “Lori, I don’t know if you’ve _noticed_ over the last… eight years, but I’m not exactly fucking ‘thriving’ in this goddamn town.”

A shadow passes over Lori’s face. She breaks Shane’s gaze. “But this is _home_.”

Seeming to finally cotton on to the distress, Rick ambles his way up into a sitting position. He looks at Shane. “You’re my best friend. Who else am I supposed to drive around with? Who’s gonna be my kid’s favorite person to hang out with?”

For whatever reason, this is what snaps Lori’s face back into joy. She laughs and turns away from Shane to slap Rick’s arm. “ _I’m_ supposed to be the kids’ favorite.”

Shane feels her body ice over. The joint burns out in her hand. She looks at Rick. “The fuck?”

Rick’s face takes on a dopey mask of confusion. “Lori and I…”

Her attention turns to Lori. “Are you fucking _pregnant_?”

Alarm rings out across Lori’s face. “No! Jesus, Shane. Rick and I have just been talking about after graduation…”

 _Oh_. The ice in Shane’s middle flares into heat. Two burning hands wring all the blood out from her heart. “Lemme ask you somethin’,” she starts, so angry she shakes with it, “y’all ever think of having god _damn_ lives outside a’ this _goddamn town_? Y’all don’t have one _minute urge_ to think about who _the fuck_ you are before you start goin’ and makin’ more kids to be fuckin’ cursed with this horrible town as their _‘home’_?”

Rick’s mouth hangs open. Lori is still as a barn owl. Shane realizes that at some point in her tirade, she’d stood up.

Rick is the first to recover. “For God’s sake, Shane, _Jesus_ –”

But Shane raises a hand, shaking her head. “Y’know what? _Fuck_ this. Y’all stay out here if ya want, but I’m goin’ inside.” She jerks her head away from Lori, from Rick, and begins to stomp off, her combat boots crushing the dead grass with a less than satisfying _crunch_. 

Her father’s working the night shift, so she doesn’t have to be quiet when she gets back to the house. She slams the sagging porch door with all the might she can muster. A bolt jumps loose from the top corner of the frame and the screen door leans, dangling off the old brackets. She slams the front door for good measure, but doesn’t lock it.

Ignoring the two years’ worth of clutter and the mess accumulated in the front of the house since her mother left, Shane continues her stomp towards her room. 

She doesn’t even like her room. Three of its walls are pink and white striped – painted when her mother was pregnant in a fit of baby-bliss inspired nesting. The fourth wall is painted black – badly, with splashes of painting staining the carpet and Shane’s dresser – her parents had caught her in the act of ‘redecorating’ when she was thirteen. She’d been grounded for a month, but not asked to repaint. She considered it a victory and has spent the last four years plastering her non black walls with anything and everything she could get her hands on to cover the pink. There’s album covers slipped from jewel cases in the music store three towns over; pages ripped from books; even fucking grocery store ads. 

Shane doesn’t look at her walls, barely even looks at the piles of clothes and school books on the floor. She steps on what’s most definitely clean laundry needing folding and her Trig homework. What finally catches her is her reflection in the mirror above her dresser.

Wild black hair, dark eyes, and a massive nose stare back her. It’s then, looking at herself, that she realizes she’s been crying. She braces her forearms against the edges of her dresser and kicks it until her foot hurts.

When she stops and looks up, forearms shaking from the effort it takes to hold herself up, Lori is in the open doorway to her bedroom.

She looks like a ghost. Pale skin, washed out eyes, white dress, and bare, grass and dirt-stained feet. For a moment, Shane thinks she is. 

“Shane?” 

The sound of her voice makes her real. All of Shane’s anger drains out of her, like a flood down a storm drain. She’s left tired. Shane faces Lori.

Stepping over the threshold, Lori enters Shane’s room. She hasn’t been inside it since she and Shane were kids, playing with stuffed animals and army rangers stolen from trash they’d found walking home from school. 

“I…” Lori’s words dry up and Shane’s stomach tenses. 

She recovers: “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Shane drops onto the edge of her bed and sniffles, wiping her nose with her forearm. “M’fine,” she says, reaching to tug one boot off.

Lori steps closer and drops down to a crouch. “You have to untie them first.” Her fingers reach out, waving Shane’s hands away. Her touch is a cool jolt to Shane’s nerves. “You never do,” she adds, whispering.

“I untie my shoes,” Shane replies, scoffing. Her reply is vehement, confused, maybe even offended.

And Lori laughs, tugging off Shane’s boot. “No, you don’t. Your mother would _always_ yell at you for it.”

Shane stiffens as Lori moves on to the other. “Maybe I learned,” she says, wary. “It’s been a long time since you… You don’t know me, Lori.”

Lori looks up at Shane from her position near the floor. “Yes I do,” she says, whispering again. “Your gym shoes are always tied when you put them in your locker.”

Shane frowns, feeling exposed. Lori takes off Shane’s other boot. Shane considers moving away, pulling further back on her bed.

Lori rises off the floor, still looking at Shane. “You still chew with your mouth open. You have a scar on your cheek because you fell off a rock down near the creek at my parents’ house.” She’s so close to Shane. Lori smells like weed and booze and Rick’s horrible aftershave and like dirt and grass and vanilla.

“And you always speak your mind, damn the consequences. That’s what I liked about you, Shane.” 

Lori bites her lip, finally looking away from Shane. As she worries her lip, Shane realizes it’s been a long time since she’s seen her without lip gloss on, without foundation blurring away her freckles. 

She’d missed Lori’s freckles.

It’s as she realizes this that Lori meets Shane’s gaze once more, for a brief, charged moment, before it drops again. “That’s what I _still_ like about you.”

Shane realizes Lori is staring at her mouth.

She doesn’t think, only reaches, pushing her hand into Lori’s hair ( _soft_ ) and dragging Lori down and towards her mouth. Lori closes the distance, pressing her lips to Shane’s first.

The kiss isn’t gentle, not like Shane thought kissing Lori would be like. There is no tender, cautious touching; it is not slow. It is not easy. It is hungry.

Her mouth opens up under Shane’s before she even thinks about trying to lick apart Lori’s lips. She curls her tongue against the ridges of the roof of Lori’s mouth and Lori shivers, falling into Shane’s lap with her knees on either side of Shane’s hips. 

Shane’s hands fall from Lori’s hair, onto Lori’s waist and she already finds Lori bucking, bearing her hips down onto Shane’s and Shane’s too far gone to remind her, to tell her, _it’s different, not like this_ – instead, she acts, flipping her position with Lori’s.

That’s what breaks their first kiss, Lori falling back onto Shane’s mattress with a small gasp. Her eyes are wide, her pulse jumping at her throat. “Shane –”

“Shh,” she soothes, taking one hand from Lori’s hip and smoothing the hair that’s just starting to cover her face. “Shhh.”

Shane bows her neck and kisses the very end of the neckline of Lori’s dress, feeling the warmth and firmness of her breastbone against her mouth. She adjusts her weight and slides, settling her knees on the floor and skirting her hands down Lori’s sides as she lays open mouthed kisses to the planes of her stomach. Lori is gasping.

“Shhh.” Shane rubs one thumb into Lori’s hipbone until she’s calmed enough for Shane to take her hands to Lori’s thighs and push her dress up to get her head under it.

Lori’s underwear has blue and purple flowers on it. This makes Shane laugh, which she presses into the inside of Lori’s thigh. 

Lori giggles and squirms one bare foot pressing into Shane’s shoulder blade. “That tickles,” she whispers.

“Sorry,” Shane murmurs back and presses one gentle kiss to the spec of smooth skin. Then she takes her nose and presses it to the very top of Lori’s cunt. Through the thin fabric of her underwear, Shane feels heat and smiles when Lori flinches with pleasure against her. The sound of Lori’s labored breathing fills the room.

Her hands find their way into Shane’s hair, vice-like in their grip, drawing a moan from Shane. Lori squirms again and Shane exhales, her breath tickling Lori. 

“You ever…?” Shane’s voice is as gentle as it gets.

“N-no – not… this.”

There’s a moment where Shane’s mind blinks with anger, the image of Rick drawn up in her mind. Of course Rick hasn’t.

She closes her eyes and breathes in deep, taking in the earthy and damp scent of Lori’s cunt and banishes Rick from her mind. 

Carefully, tentatively, she begins taking Lori apart with her tongue.

* * *

They don’t talk about it. 

Rick never asks what happened and Shane never asks what Lori told him when she left Shane’s room that night, her hair mussed, her dress wrinkled, and her underwear forgotten under Shane’s bed. (She had found them a week later, when looking for a pair of her own, and sat on the edge of the bed with the panties in her hand, still smelling faintly of sex and Lori, for a long, long time.)

Instead, what happens is that on Monday, Shane picks up Rick and then Lori for school and everything is normal.

* * *

Everything is normal, of course, until it isn’t.

Which is when Lori texts Shane, a week and a half later, and asks her to pick her up from cheerleading practice.

They fuck in the back of the hatchback and Lori says, “It’s going to smell like us back here when you pick me up tomorrow.”

* * *

Which is how things continue. Shane picks Rick and Lori up for school. She drops Rick off at home after school. She spends three hours laying on her back on the floor in her room, waiting for Lori to text her. She picks up Lori.

They do all kinds of things, in all kinds of places.

* * *

This lasts through football season. Then, when winter comes, so does basketball season. They spend less time in Shane’s hatchback and more time in Shane’s bed.

It’s perfect, except for the part where every day Shane sees Lori with Rick.

* * *

One day, after spring break, Shane doesn’t pick Rick up. He’s sick, some kind of stomach bug that’s been making the rounds at school. Rick texts her a string of emojis, which she takes to mean _I am suffering but am too manly to say anything about it_. So she texts him back a thumbs up and leaves it at that.

When she pulls up in front of Lori’s house, she reaches across the car to swing the passenger door open and Lori jumps in, confused and frowning. “Where’s Rick?” she asks, turning her head back and forth, her long neck arched. 

“Sick,” Shane says, the lightness in her chest dimming as she watches Lori’s face move from confusion into a frown. 

“Can you just drive?” she asks.

Shane does, frowning as Lori watches her parents’ house from the window. 

“Is something wrong?” she finally asks, waiting until they’re two blocks down the road before grinding the question out from behind her teeth.

Lori looks at her lap. “It’s nothing.”

“Clearly it’s somethin’.”

Lori sighs. “Can we just – not. Today?”

Shane scowls. “Not what?”

“Fight.”

“Didn’t realize we were,” Shane huffs. They’re stopped at a stop sign, three blocks away from Lori’s house. She looks at the intersection and feels something dark and ugly begin to grow in her chest.

She turns right, away from school.

“Shane!” Lori’s eyes are wide – bewildered. “What are you –”

Shane turns right, around the block, heading back towards Lori’s house.

“Shane!” Lori’s voice is high, close to cracking. “Shane, please don’t.”

“What, were you ‘fraid your parents might see you gettin’ into the passenger seat of a dyke’s car without your _boyfriend_ to protect you?”

Lori falls into a horrible, horrible silence and looks at her hands, which wring in her lap.

“Good to know.” Shane turns left, onto another block, and then drives them to school.

* * *

In the middle of Trig, Shane gets a text from Lori, asking her to wait for her after school.

They agree to meet in the library, which feels a little fucking cliche for Shane’s taste, but they both know it’s because no one goes there willingly after school. 

When she sees Lori, coming down the aisle they agreed to meet in (East Asian History), despite the anger that’s been radiating from her chest into her bones all day, Shane’s heart flips over. 

Lori looks… wan. She looks thin and tired in a way that immediately strikes alarm in Shane’s gut. She meets Shane’s gaze as Shane is already pushing off the floor to move towards her. She puts her hand on Shane’s bicep. “Easy,” she whispers.

“Lori –”

“I wanted to say I’m sorry,” she says.

Shane stills and feels herself go limp.

“For this morning. I…” Lori’s eyes look impossibly large. “I should have just said something.” She swallows. Shane watches her throat. “I’m just not as brave as you. I wish I was. But I’m not.”

“Lori…” Shane starts, looking down at her with wide, nervous eyes of her own. 

Lori leans against Shane’s chest, just for a moment, her fingers curling against the lapel of her shitty, already cracking and shedding, fake leather jacket. Shane wants to fit her head on top of Lori’s and hold her close. “Let’s just get out of here.”

Shane obliges her.

* * *

By the time mid-April rolls around, everyone is talking about fucking prom. 

Shane has already made plans to go to Atlanta, which has Lori so upset she hasn’t spoken to Shane in two days. 

Rick, meanwhile, to Shane’s surprise, is more sympathetic. “Listen, man,” he says one afternoon at Shane’s, while Lori’s at cheer practice, “I get it. If I were…” Here he pauses and for once, Shane just wants him to be able to say _gay_ , to be more like the boy she met in the ninth grade and less like this person this horrible fucking town has made him. “I wouldn’t want to be here for the prom either.”

“Yeah,” she says, kicking dirt with the toe of her shoe. “I’d rather not be reminded of the fact that everyone here thinks I’m a goddamn freak of sin and nature.” She spits. “Just. Y’know, personally.”

Rick nods. They’re quiet for a long, long time.

* * *

The following Monday, when Rick and Lori slide onto the bench across from Shane at lunch, Lori is beaming. 

“Shane!” she says, and in that moment, Shane is able to _see_ Lori-the-cheerleader, Lori-the-Southern-Belle. Georgia sunshine just _oozes_ out of her disposition. “I know how to save prom weekend.”

Shane raises an eyebrow. She’s working on English homework with one hand, a sandwich with the other. Pushing her food into one cheek, she says, “Didn’t realize it was in peril."

Lori rolls her eyes and hits Shane’s arm, playful. 

That snaps Shane to attention. Lori doesn’t _touch_ Shane in public. 

Rick’s warm voice forces her to remember they’re not alone. “You’re a real dick sometimes.” 

Shane snorts. “Yeah, I acknowledge that.“

“ _Anyway_ ,” Lori sighs. She meets Shane’s gaze. “What I meant was, I know how to save prom weekend _for us_.”

Shane nearly chokes. It’s visible enough that a beat of earnest concern passes over Rick’s face and he reaches across the table to slap the back of Shane’s shoulder. She shrugs him off and croaks, “What?”

Lori’s smile is something between terrifying and playful. “ _For the three of us_.” These words are heavy, pointed. “We’re going to go camping.”

Shane stares for a long moment. “ _Camping?_ ” she echoes. She looks at Rick. “You okay with that?”

Rick shrugs, grinning easily, as if this is a normal thing, as if the three of them can have a normal night together, as if Shane hasn’t been fucking Rick’s girlfriend, enthusiastically, since September. “Yeah,” he says, looking from Shane to Lori. “I was talking with Lori about what you said the other day and she came up with –”

“You _what?_ ” 

Rick’s grin falters, but Lori slides into the conversation once more. “It’s _okay_ , Shane,” she insists. “I get it.”

That shuts Shane up. Something wrenches in her chest, equal parts wounded and hungry. She swallows and says “I assume I’m driving?”

* * *

To the surprise of maybe everyone but Shane, who has actually camped before, the only open camp sites on Memorial Day weekend are the ones they have to hike in to. So Shane parks at the trailhead, loads Rick up with more stuff than anyone else (penance, she says, for spilling her guts to Lori) and they hike in.

The first night, they’re each so sweaty and tired from the trail they barely talk to each other once they’ve set up camp. Shane makes them hotdogs for dinner and they pile in to the tent, Lori, as always, between them.

Shane zips her sleeping bag up as far as it can go. Lori and Rick zip theirs together. Shane sleeps facing the door of the tent all night, wrenching her shoulder in the process.

* * *

On day two, Rick decides he’s going to take the trail map and try to find the creek that’s supposedly nearby. He says he will be fine and makes sure to flash his old Cub Scouts pocket knife in Shane’s direction when she questions this.

Shane’s working on getting their firewood situated for the evening when Lori says she’s going to go for a walk. Rick still isn’t back, but Lori tells Shane not to worry.

She manages about ten minutes alone in the campsite before following the path Lori had taken. 

Lori isn’t a subtle hiker, humming to herself as she picks her way through the trees. Shane is able to find her almost immediately. She sneaks up behind her, reaching out for her shoulder and spinning her around for a kiss.

She’s rewarded with hard smack on the neck and Lori fidgeting away. “You idiot!” she hisses. “I thought you were…”

She doesn’t have to say Rick’s name.

Shane falls away, her jaw working its way into a pout. 

Which is, of course, when Lori steps back into her space and kisses her. She recovers quickly, her arms wrapping around Lori’s middle, hands trailing down her back until they cup the soft flesh of her ass. Lori moans into Shane’s mouth and curls her hand against her jaw hard enough that Shane thinks she might break the skin.

“Damn, girl,” Shane breathes as the kiss breaks. 

“Shut up,” Lori replies, tugging open Shane’s shirt and then pulling on the fabric, dragging them both down, onto the damp forest floor.

* * *

They get back to camp before Rick does, who returns sunburnt and dry. Shane laughs and gives his hair a tousle with her fist when he sits down next to her in front of the fire.

They talk and laugh, just like they used to before everything got a little more complicated. They make fun of their classmates, their teachers, their parents. They eat tacos Shane makes on a single burner camp stove. They talk about skipping graduation together, to come back out here, to this spot. They drink some slightly-less shitty beer than usual, purchased with Shane’s fake ID.

They tumble into the tent together once the fire has burnt down to its last embers. Rick, nearly already asleep when they were still outside, curls into a snoring ball. 

Shane is settling down for bed, sliding off her dirty, mud stained shorts before getting into her sleeping bag. It leaves her in her dirty denim button down and her boyshorts (a name she’s always hated – why does a cut of underwear have to have two layers of gender imposed on it?). Which is when she becomes suddenly aware of eyes on her.

Lori is sitting next to Rick, her eyes a dark shade of blue-green that Shane associates with summer storms and pure, unbridled want. She shivers and decides, impulsively, to lay down on top of her sleeping bag. It’s cold in the early summer night, her skin turning into gooseflesh. 

Lori climbs on top of Shane and bends down to kiss her, already licking into her mouth before laving her tongue against Shane’s until Shane’s mouth feels prickly and numb.

Shane barely allows herself to breathe. Desire coils at the base of her spine. Lori, for all that they’ve done together, isn’t normally like this – brazen and burning with want, dragging her nails down Shane’s chest and flicking her nipple through her thin sports bra. 

They don’t speak. Even Lori, for all her aggressiveness, is quiet when she moans against Shane’s hip. She hides it with a quick bite, leaving behind a bruise Shane will finger for days, savoring it until it turns yellow and brown.

Then Lori rolls back, her back arching as she stretches up like a cat. There’s a moment where the joints in her neck crack and they both freeze, turning their attention to Rick in one horrible, cold second.

He snores and buries his head in the pile of clothes he’s using as a pillow.

Shane has to bite down, hard, on her tongue to keep from squawking with laughter. Lori’s shoulders tremble with laughter and she decides to hide hers by bending back down to kiss Shane again. There’s blood in the kiss.

Lori smiles against Shane’s mouth and pulls back, sitting up once more. She reaches for the bottom of her dress and pulls it up, off. In the shadows, Shane can see she’s not wearing a bra. Her mouth dries. She follows Lori up, reaching for her, to roll Lori’s breasts under her palms.

They roll back down together, which is when a piece of cold metal knocks against Shane’s chest, something sharp enough that when it hits her clavicle, she sucks in a harsh breath.

Lori pulls back, frowning with worry. Her eyes search Shane for the source of the hurt, just as Shane reaches for whatever it is that’s scrapped against her skin.

Her fingers find a ring, hanging from a chain on Lori’s neck. She runs her fingers over it and feels the sharp edges of a gemstone.

“Lori–” her voice is as quiet as she can make it. Shane thinks she’s shaking as she holds this ring between her fingers. Between her and Lori. “Is this –”

“It’s nothing,” Lori whispers back, reaching for it. 

Shane’s fingers curl tighter around the ring in response, forgetting it’s attached to Lori and inadvertently tugs on her neck. They both gasp and stumble in the darkness and that icy fear returns, as they lay, frozen against each other, waiting for Rick to wake up.

He doesn’t.

Shane is still holding the ring.

“Lori,” she says again.

When Lori opens her mouth, reaching for the ring again, Shane adds, quieter still, “Please don’t lie to me.”

Lori closes her eyes and presses her forehead to Shane’s. All Shane can think about is the ring. The ring and Rick sleeping beside them. 

“He asked when I suggested this trip. He said he’d wanted to do it at prom…”

If Lori keeps talking, Shane doesn’t hear her. All she can hear is the rush of her own blood in her ears. The waves drown the world out. 

“Shane?” Lori asks, small, hushed.

“Get off me, Lori.”

There is a moment, protracted and painful, where Shane thinks Lori’s going to beg, to plead, to say something else. All Shane can think is that if Lori does, she will break into a thousand pieces.

Lori climbs off of Shane, taking her dress with her as she does. Shane watches her gently shove Rick over and crawl into the space between him and the wall of the tent.

She’s going to be sick. 

If she gets out of the tent, she’ll wake Rick.

Clenching her fists at her sides, Shane begins to count. She reaches two hundred and six before, finally, sleep overtakes her.

* * *

She doesn’t say a word to Rick or Lori in the morning. In fact, she barely looks at Lori at all. 

Rick chalks it up to her being hungover, even though in the years he’s known her she’s never been hungover a single fucking time. But it’s easier than the truth and it makes Rick help out moreso than usual, rolling up the sleeping bags and breaking down the tent while she cleans up their camp kitchen.

They hike out of the woods together: Shane in the lead, with Rick between her and Lori.

Rick puts on some podcast for the drive home – something about zombies and the end of the world and Shane thinks that she would prefer that, honestly, to this. 

She drops Rick off first, out of habit. When she realizes what she’s done, she thinks about wrapping her car around the nearest tree. She thinks she’d die, but Lori would probably be okay.

Which is, of course, when Lori says her name.

“Don’t.”

She drives, pulling up in front of Lori’s house and as she idles the car, waiting for Lori to get out of the goddamn car, all Shane can think about is that day when Rick was sick and how she should have known then that this was a fucking mistake.

(The smaller, angrier part of her thinks: _well, if Lori won’t get out of the fucking car, then at least she’ll have to explain to her parents what she was doing in the dyke’s car for so long_.)

She knows Lori is looking at her, waiting for her to say something. So Shane reaches across Lori’s lap and opens the passenger door for her.

Lori’s crying when she gets out of the car. She doesn’t slam the door. Nor does she slam Shane’s trunk when she grabs her backpack.

She does, however, look back at Shane before going inside.

Shane speeds away, hoping for someone to crash into. 

* * *

She doesn’t go to graduation. 

Instead, Shane writes a note to her dad, telling him that she’ll be gone when he gets back from work and to not bother looking for her. She’ll call. (It’s a lie.)

She shoves everything that matters to her (clothes, a few books, the bucknife that belonged to her grandfather, a photo of herself and her mother, a few mix cids, and a map of Georgia) in her trunk and starts driving.

Half an hour outside of Atlanta, she calls the last girl she picked up at a bar before Lori. Her name is saved in Shane’s phone as _? Andrea._

She picks up on the last ring. “Shane? I didn’t expect to hear from you.”

“Hey.” Shane exhales and hears her voice shake for the first time.


End file.
